Little Boy Blue

At the center of Little Boy Blue is an airport heist gone bad. A young baggage handler has been gunned down. Detective Joe Gregory and his partner, Anthony Ryan, sense something "hinky" about the killing of young Johnny Boy Counihan, who wore an old blue NYPD overcoat to his death. Determined to find the killer, the two cops cast their lot with Johnny Boy's angry, heartbroken, street-smart grandfather, Vito Martucci, who claims to know who did the killing and why. Vito doesn't have all the answers. While the detectives interview suspects, a hoods' hangout in Queens is firebombed and another body is found in a car trunk at the airport, this one covered with artificial eyes. And a group of young Irish immigrants, linked to Johnny Boy's life and death, tell Ryan and Gregory a story that ranges from charmingly curious to darkly disturbing. The real killers - and the real motive - remain hidden somewhere in the city that pays Ryan's and Gregory's salary and confounds them, the city of their fathers, their sins, their enemies. For the Great Gregory, years of hard living have taken a steep emotional toll. For Ryan, being a cop first and a husband second is giving way to a new sense of love for his wife and a marriage that has endured. And for both, a partnership forged in the mad, unceasing poetry of the street - as well as the politics of the force - is turning to something else: a deeper understanding and acceptance of each other's flawed humanity. When Gregory and Ryan finally uncover the truth behind Johnny Boy's killing, it is a truth laced with bitter irony, love, and innocence betrayed.